


Kiss Me like You Mean It

by Diana_Raven



Category: DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Superboy (Comics)
Genre: Fake Dating, Fake Dating for Hand Wavy Reasons, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stalking, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 21:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18536137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/Diana_Raven
Summary: Ra's is driving Tim up the wall by stalking him, so Tim decides to entrap him by fake-dating Kon. Yeah, hand-wavy reasons, but hey, timkon fake dating.





	Kiss Me like You Mean It

**Author's Note:**

> I know why you're here. You know why you're here. It's a ridiculous plot just for the idea of timkon fake dating.

When Kon kisses Tim it feels like one of those **record scratch** [freeze frame] moments. The ones where the scene before you stops, time seems to extend, and you can hear your disembodied voice say to an unsuspecting audience: “Yeah, I bet you’re wondering how I got here.” To Tim, all of these things seem to happen like an odd out-of-body experience. Where suddenly, Kon is kissing him, and the next second, he has to run back over the past few weeks and explain to himself, if no one else, why.

It had been Tam’s idea, see. Ra’s had been stalking Tim in some pretty sneaky ways, so much so that no one seemed to notice he was there except for Tim. After Ra’s had shifted his focus of getting an heir to Tim and not Bruce, things had been… weirder for Tim. Firstly, he’d started seeing League members everywhere. In coffee-shops, on the subway, when he went to buy a book, or across the street from the window at a board meeting… They weren’t becoming inconveniences, but it was certainly creepy. Not to mention that the League’s sudden decline in crime rate meant that during his job, Tim didn’t tend to go after them, since they weren’t committing any crimes for what Tim could tell. It was creepy and unusual. Occasionally Tim wondered what it would be like, to give an heir to the League ( _not_ that he would ever do that of course) simply to see the way Damian’s face would turn red.

So when Tim had told Tam of these occurrences casually, after all, he’d been living with them for about three months now. Tam suggested screwing with him, with the end goal of entrapping him and finding him a cell in Belle Reve (though both of them knew that he would be out in a few days, it would still be a nice vacation from being stalked). So Tim asked what she had in mind.

 

“You want me to fake date you so that Ra’s tries to coerce me into not dating you by threatening me and you can catch him and put him in jail?” Kon asked.

“That about sums it up.” Tim said. They were at the Tower (one of the few places Ra’s spies had trouble watching) having a movie night and gorging themselves on pizza and ice cream.

“All because he’s getting on your nerves by stalking you.”

“Pretty much.”

“But don’t paparazzi stalk you all the time?”

“Ah yes, but _they_ don’t know I’m a superhero and also aren’t weirdly obsessed with me and want my baby to rule their criminal syndicates.”

“Ah.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. If not I’ll just ask Bart or Cassie, though with them it will admittedly be harder.”

“Since you don’t have any civilian relationship with them already?”

“Exactly. Also, with Cassie we won’t be dashing his dream of me having a bio-child for him to kidnap and seduce to the dark side. Come to think of it, he might actually wait for a baby from the two of us since it would have her brawn and my brains or whatever.”

“Hmm.” Kon thought, chewing absently on a crust. “I mean sure, I guess. I don’t think I’m busy on Saturday, anyway.”

“Perfect! The Gala is at seven. I already told Clark and Bruce about my plan, so when Clark comes he’ll bring you and that’ll be the official beginning.”

“Wait, if Ra’s knows you’re Red Robin and that Bruce is Batman, then how come he doesn’t know that Clark and I are super-powered?”

Tim shrugged. “I’m sure he could figure it out if he really cared, but I don’t think he does.”

“Won’t he care though, once we start dating?”

“Ah yes. He will. But then if he does figure it out, he’ll just find some Kryptonite and try to kill you that way, which honestly is pretty easy to defend you from.”

“Yeah, but it’ll hurt like a bitch ‘til you swoop in, oh White Knight of mine.” Kon grumbled.

Tim flicked his ear. “I’ll come quickly, promise.” He reached over Kon to take the pint of ice cream and dig in the spoon. “Besides,” he said, mouth full of Fortress of Solitude (vanilla ice cream with strawberry and blue swirled ice cream for Superman himself), “you can always say no. Like I said, I’ll just ask one of the others.”

“Nah, I’ll do it. It’ll be fun. Plus, I have an essay due and if I go I can get Clark to get me an extension.”

Tim frowned as Kon took the pint from him and spooned out a generous amount for himself. “It won’t just be one night you know, we’ll be fake dating for probably about a month before Ra’s finally gets fed up.”

Kon grinned. “Even better, I’ll get extensions for a whole month!”

Tim rolled his eyes and swatted at Kon. “Glad I could help.”

“Will we also be fake dating in costume?”

Tim frowned. “Maybe. If it comes to that, though I don’t know if it will. Maybe like, at the Tower but not in the field.”

“Gotcha.”

What he didn’t tell Kon was that Tim had only ever _wanted_ to fake date Kon. Well, real date him for that matter, because of the tiny, itty bitty, little thing that Tim had for him. The one that made his insides squirm in a good way about the thought of him and Kon dating. The one that made his heart pound as Kon brushed up against him. The one that made his belly squeeze when Kon swung an arm around Tim’s shoulders and said with an exaggerated wink: “So _Boyfriend_ , what’s the plan?” And Tim laid out how the night would go (not telling Kon how some of it was straight out of one of his fantasies).

 

So Tim’s brain fast-forwards again until now, where Kon’s lips are firmly planted against his and for a moment he forgets that they’re pretending and closes his eyes.

And Kon pulls away.

Tim’s eyes flicker back open and he watches, stunned, as Kon waves cheerfully to the hoards of paparazzi watching them, documenting their kiss for all the world to see. Tim slides on a mask of cheerfulness (not even close to touching the butterflies in his belly) and pulls Kon closer. As if they do this all the time. As if kissing Kon is the norm and not something he’s fantasized about for years. Kon explains their budding relationship to the paparazzi as coyly as he can, and Tim, still blinded by his smile and blindsided by the kiss ( _of course he would kiss you, dumbass! That’s part of the dating thing! Kissing! How could you possibly have overlooked it?)_ grins stupidly and just dazedly watches Kon handle the press.

_He’s really good at it_ , Tim thinks numbly, brushing back a lock of Kon’s hair before he can stop himself (then reminds himself, as Kon glances at him and smiles softly in response, before returning to Vicki Vale’s question, that he no longer has to hold those impulses back). Definitely a requirement in someone Tim dates. Then Tim remembers that Kon used to be The Kid, which came with it’s own amount of paparazzi and fame, though he supposes, the person before him now is not The Kid, but Conner Kent, son of Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, and that granted, Kon’s interaction with the press during his celebrity era wasn’t handled _nearly_ as gracefully as Conner handles the press before him now.

Finally, Tim returns to a mindset where he’s able to once again be Tim Drake-Wayne, seventeen year old CEO of Wayne Enterprises. He ushers Kon away from the flashing cameras and screaming reporters who doubtless, have a million questions. But he’s playing the part, and so is Kon as he coyly calls back to them that Tim is just embarrassed because he wanted to keep Kon to himself a little longer. And even though Kon doesn’t know how true that statement is, Tim still blushes furiously, and swats at Kon playfully who laughs and the two of them climb into their car and Alfred speeds them away into the night.

 

“Hey Babe,” Kon says now when he answers the phone, which is something Tim is desperately trying (and failing) not to get used to.

“Hey, so how are things going?” Tim asks, drawing little hearts on the corner of his financial report for the suburban housing sectors of Gotham Heights like a middle schooler. Kon knows what he’s really asking. “Any vultures stalking you?”

They’re pretty sure that Kon’s cell phone has been bugged ever since his exhibition last week at the Gala. “Some. Paparazzi are everywhere, but I haven’t been contacted for any interviews or anything,” he says, (i.e. _I’ve seen some ninjas around but Ra’s himself hasn’t made an appearance._ )

“Okay, well if they ever get to be too much, just let me know.”

“Of course, babe. Man, is this what you deal with all the time?”

Tim knows he’s now speaking truthfully. Tim shrugs and erases the little hearts. “Sometimes. It gets worse whenever there’s a scandal. Why? With all of Clark’s fame, you’ve never dealt with this before?” Tim asks, and hopes that Kon can read between the lines on unpracticed code. _You never dealt with this as The Kid_?

“Nah. They only ever...” He pauses and then puts emphasis on his next words, so clearly he _did_ understand, “ _go_ after _Clark_ whenever he makes waves, you know? And that barely happens anymore.”

“Oh, totally. I understand.” Tim glances at the line of clocks on his wall, one for every major city around the world that they do business in. He’s flying to Metropolis an hour from now for a business meeting with Luthor. “So I’ll see you in a few hours? I have a thing around six, but after that we can go out to dinner. You pick the place. Your home turf and all.”

“Deal.” Tim can hear Kon’s grin on the other end of the line and when his stomach wobbles in his belly he wonders, not for the first time, if maybe fake dating someone you have a crush on is a bad idea. “Come pick me up at the apartment when you’re done and I’ll show you the time of our lives.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Okay. Gotta go, the bell just rang. Love you.”

The words make Tim freeze, and for a moment he can’t breathe either. He was so stupid to do this. To think he could hear Kon say these things and not mean them and think that Tim didn’t mean them either when Tim did.

“Tim?” Kon asks after Tim doesn’t reply. “You okay?”

“Yeah sorry, Tam needed my attention for a second.”

“Okay. Love you.” Kon repeats.

“Yeah.” Tim responds quickly, “loveyoubye.” And hangs up before he can regret what he just said.

 

Tim and Kon’s fake relationship is going swimmingly, if Kon does say so himself. They’ve been on plenty of dates, Kon is being stalked by paparazzi and ninjas, everything is falling into place. The only bad part of the whole thing is how much Kon wishes it wasn’t fake. Not—of course—that he can tell _Tim_ that. The guy who only came to him for this because they’re such good friends and, well, all of the reasons Tim had told him when he first proposed the idea. It isn’t like Tim actually cares about him in that way. After all, like Tim said, he could have gone to Bart or Cassie for the same thing. He didn’t _have_ to come to Kon. Kon was just the most preferable, from a logical standpoint.

Not that Kon minds, being preferable from a logical standpoint is almost like being first pick and Kon could never complain about being Tim’s first pick. Especially considering how much he wants to be for everything.

So when Ra’s inevitably confronts Kon, Tim swoops in and Ra’s is arrested and at least out of Tim’s hair for a few hours, and the jig is up. No matter how much Kon wishes it wasn’t.

“Thanks for helping me with this. I know it took up so much of your time and everything-”

“Seriously, Tim. It was no problem. It was fun.” Kon says, savoring the last moments of their fake dating. “So what about the paparazzi?”

“I’ll deal with it, say that we broke up because our fathers don’t approve. Ooo, _that’ll_ piss off Bruce.” Kon can tell that Tim is grinning on the other end of the line. After bringing Ra’s in Tim had to book it to Gotham, he has an early meeting in the morning.

Kon snorts. “Go ahead, dude.” He says although the last thing he wants to do is end this officially. He ignores the pang in his heart at the idea. He checks his tone, making sure his disappointment doesn’t linger in his voice. “Clark will have a conniption.”

“Okay. I’m entering Gotham airspace, gotta go.”

“Okay, love you.” Kon says, just to hear himself say it one last time. The excuse already coming to his lips. He hears Tim go silent on the other end, and says: “Sorry. Habit.”

“Yeah.” Tim’s voice sounds cracked. “See you.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” Tim hangs up. Kon accepts that that’s the last time he’ll ever say those words to Tim, and can’t help but feel that he just lost something.

 

“You okay, Conner?” Clark asks at dinner than night.

“Huh?”

“You seem out of it.” He mentions around his burger.

Kon shrugs and picks at his fries. “Tim’s telling the press we broke up tonight.”

“Huh?” Clark sounds confused. Kon looks up at him. Clark’s hamburger hangs limply from his hands.

“Tim and I were fake dating to entrap Ra’s.” Which honestly sounds pretty stupid when he says it out loud but it worked, so really who’s the stupid one? Him or Ra’s?

“That was fake?”

Kon frowns. “You-You thought we were really dating? But he said he told you-”

“Well, yeah, he did but I mean, I know how _you_ feel about him, I just figured that you two were doing this as an excuse to… _you know_.” Clark doesn’t waggle his eyebrows, and Kon thanks whomever is out there that he doesn’t. Kon doesn’t think he can handle that. “And then after all was said and done you two would keep dating.” Clark says, biting into his burger.

“What? _Why_?”

“You’ve seen the way he looks at you, right?”

“He’s acting, Clark. He’s _Robin_. He can do that.”

Clark rolls his eyes. “I’m aware, Conner. That’s not what I meant.” Clark takes out his phone as he eats, scrolling through something before showing it to Conner. As Conner take the phone Clark adds: “Why was you two dating going to entrap Ra’s, again? Tim didn’t explain it well before.”

“Because Ra’s is obsessed with getting Tim to make him an heir.” Conner says as he looks at the picture. The idea that Tim would tell Clark that the two of them would date and Clark didn’t quite understand why certainly explains that Clark thought… what he thought. The picture is one of the two of them at last Thanksgiving. Tim had Conner had sat next to one another. In the picture Conner was laughing at something and Tim had a strange look on his face. He was smiling. It wasn’t as if Conner had never seen this specific strange look before, he had. But it had never meant anything. It still didn’t.

“I thought that was what Bruce and Damian were for.”

“He’s sick of Bruce saying ‘no’, so he’s bothering Tim now.”

“He needs a life.” Clark mumbles which makes Conner laugh.

Conner slides back the phone. “So? He always looks like that.”

This makes Clark’s eyebrows draw together. “He does?”

“Yeah. So?”

Clark is already fishing for another picture. This one is one of Ma and Pa. He shows it to Conner. Conner takes the phone. Ma is cooking and Pa is helping her, simply peeling potatoes while she kneads dough. They’re shoulder to shoulder, and Ma is looking at Pa with that same strange look, and Pa is smiling.

Conner goes cold. That’s a coincidence. It has to be a coincidence.

“So? That’s just one picture.” He says, which sounds like a weak defense even to his ears.

Clark’s mouth twists into a grim smile. He searches through his gallery once more, this time coming up with a picture of him and Lois (presumably taken by Jimmy as the picture is clearly a higher caliber than the others). He looks at Lois with an identical expression to Ma’s.

“I just thought...”

Clark raises an eyebrow. “You just thought?”

“Well. I just-I just thought that was how his face looks. Every time we talk he looks-” Every time Conner looks at him to find Tim looking back. Every time that he saw that face in the photos of the paparazzi and promotional pictures that W/E had been putting out… he just assumed that that was how Tim _looked_.

But suddenly other memories are coming back too. Times when Tim’s face hadn’t looked like that. When it had been angry or scared or tired and when Tim had caught Kon looking those expressions had either melted or softened slightly slowly morphing into this…

Oh.

Conner does a quick Waynet search for the most famous picture of the two of them recently. From that night at the Gala when they’d come out to the press. Conner had kissed Tim (something he’d wanted to do forever) and Tim had looked at him afterward—so mesmerized, so happy… There!

Conner enlarges the photo, then switches back to the picture of Tim at Thanksgiving.

Tim had seen that photo too, and Conner had mentioned what a good actor Tim was to look so in love, and Tim had laughed. He’d agreed. He was a good actor. There was no way- But the expressions were the same. So _exactly_ the same.

Conner swallows thickly.

He pushes Clark’s phone back towards him, now in a worse mood than he was five minutes ago when this whole realization thing began. He puts his head in his hands.

“So,” Clark says, “what are you going to do now?”

“If he wanted me to know—if he thought it would lead somewhere—he would have told me by now. Clearly he doesn’t want-”

“Great Scott Conner! How stupid can you be?”

Conner’s eyebrows raise. “ _Excuse_ me?”

Clark rolls his eyes. “Conner, if what you say is true, then why haven’t _you_ told Tim how _you_ feel? Because you don’t think it will lead anywhere—that it’s just a fleeting crush?”

“What? _No_! I just-You wouldn’t understand-”

“Son, I’ve had more trouble with my partners and unrequited love than you ever will. I’ll understand, believe me.”

“I haven’t told him because he’ll never feel the same way and I don’t want to screw up our relationship!”

“Except _clearly_ he does. So maybe, do you think, it’s _possible_ , just a little bit, that Tim thinks you’ll reject him too and _that’s_ why he hasn’t told you? Not because he doesn’t want to date you?”

Obviously, _no,_ the thought _hadn’t_ occurred to Conner. Because it doesn’t seem possible (he doesn’t want to let himself believe it could _be_ possible). But… could it be-? Conner’s head shoots to the TV at the bar of the diner, where the news plays on silent, subtitles rolling across the screen. Tim has just appeared on screen.

Shit.

“Clark?”

“Yes?”

“I think I have to apologize.”

“I’m sure you have nothing to apologize to him for-”

“Not to Tim. To you.”

“What? Why?”

“ _Oh, actually Mr. Kent and I aren’t together anymore. No issues on his part-Actually we’re still friends but-_ ”

“Gotta fly, see you.” Conner says abruptly. He jolts out of his seat and books it out the door as Clark shouts after him: “You forgot your bill!”

Clark shakes his head, and his eyes look to where Kon’s had been last only to see the end of Tim’s statement. “- _Well you know Bruce and Clark. Had to say, they didn’t really approve but hey, everyone’s got their own-_ ”

“Oh, that boy is in so much trouble.” Clark mumbles under his breath before waving over Bibbo. He still has a check to pay.

 

Tim misses Kon. He didn’t know how much he’d miss Kon until now.

Tim had thought, had hoped, that he could handle the inevitable fake break-up, but when Kon had slipped, and told him one last time that Kon loved him, Tim had almost lost it. Almost confessed everything on the spot.

But it had been a mistake. Habit, Kon had claimed. He didn’t really love Tim. Not in _that_ way. And knowing that it had been an accident, that had somehow made it worse.

Tim is reckless on patrol. He gets yelled at by Bruce for the stupid comment on the break-up for the press, which had been way funnier when he and Kon had been talking about it. He gets yelled at by Steph for tripping her and sending her sprawling into a hoard of bad guys they’re fighting. He gets yelled at by Damian, but frankly there’s nothing new about that. Oracle’s this close to benching him for the night and he’s in the middle of an argument with her when Kon floats by.

Tim stops what he’s doing immediately and looks up.

Kon paces in mid-air. “I missed you.” He says, and he winces as he says it which makes Tim wonder which part of that statement is a lie.

“We saw each other five hours ago.” Tim says. His voice is raw from arguing all night, and toneless from being emotionally exhausted by Kon leaving him (even though he knows rationally that their fake-dating scenario was always going to end this way—though a part of him had _hoped_ , a small _weak_ part of him-).

“I know.” Kon says. He runs his hands through his hair.

“ _Red Robin, are you listening to me_?” Babs demands on the other end of the comms. Tim reaches up and switches them off because Kon looks like he wants to say something else. Patrol can wait.

“Can-Can I see your face?”

“What?”

“Can you take off your cowl? Just for a second, I want to see your face.” Kon says.

Tim shakes his head. “Not here.” He watches as Kon deflates slightly and something tugs at his chest. “This way.”

Tim leads him to the highest tower in Gotham. Here they can’t be overheard or seen. Tim takes off his cowl and Kon drops down onto the rooftop. He walks over to Tim (Tim’s heart races) and he looks at Tim’s face, _really_ looks.

“Nothing has changed. Haven’t gone and got a facial tattoo or anything in the last five hours, if you’re wondering.” Tim says, because he’s still extremely confused as to why Kon is studying his face.

“Huh.” Kon says. “You really _do_ look at me different.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” Kon says. He takes a deep breath and says softly: “I miss you.”

“You said that already. If it’s attention you want-” Tim pulls up his cowl as he speaks, the tips of his ears pink from the way Kon is still looking at him, “-I can give you some at the Tower. I’m on patrol right now, Kon-”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean I… _miss_ you. Constantly. All the time when you’re not with me. Not just tonight. Not just because I’m used to dating you.”

Tim frowns. What on Earth does Kon mean? “I don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to explain, I-.” Kon takes a deep breath and starts again. “I love you Tim. Like. Really _really_ love you. And I miss fake-dating you because it felt… so _real_. And-I miss you because I _always_ miss you.”

Tim’s heart is beating through his chest. Is this… some sort of joke? Because it isn’t funny. It isn’t funny at _all_.

“And I know you feel the same. I saw you—watched you—before I floated down to you.” Kon points to the hazy Gotham night sky. “From up there, and you didn’t… _look_ at anyone else like that. But when I flew down and said hello, you looked at me like… like I was something special.”

Tim is speechless. He didn’t know his face betrayed him so. He works so hard on that mask that lets _no one_ know. No one! How could anyone-how could _Kon_ have possibly figured it out? How-

Wait. Did this mean… if he knew how Tim felt then did that mean he knew the impact of what Kon had said?

Was this… _not_ a joke?

Did Kon really love him?

All Tim says is: “I miss you too.” And this time when Kon kisses him the world doesn’t stop. Tim doesn’t recall how he got here. No record scratch. No freeze frame. Tim is too busy being in the moment, curling his hand in Conner’s shirt and breathing in his best friend. Or… boyfriend, he guesses. Tim knows how he got here, and needs no explanation for what’s to come.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @traya-sutton or @youngjustusorbust


End file.
